TAYUG, Pangasinan, Philippines – A new hybrid tomato variety highly tolerant to the destructive tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) has been bred.
Named Condor Tomato Atlas P1, it was developed by Allied Botanical Corp. (ABC), the only fully Filipino vegetable seed company, at its research and breeding stations in this town 195 kilometers northeast of Manila.
TYLCV is a disease called pangungulot by farmers because of the curling of the tomato plant’s leaves. It has been ravaging tomato plantations nationwide.
Condor Atlas P1 is also noted for its longer harvesting life, high prolificacy, and adaptability to varying tropical conditions in the country.
ABC, headed by Willy Uy, president and CEO, recently launched the variety in San Luis, Batangas, through a series of field trials and demonstrations.
Farmers, among them Barangay Balagtasin chairman Edgardo Pagkaliwagan, were initially skeptical of Condor Atlas F1’s performance since it was a newly introduced variety in the town.
So Pagkaliwagan apportioned 3,000 square meters of his one-hectare farm located on a rolling terrain but has good soil and organic matter content, for the trial of the variety’s performance.
With the assistance of an ABC agronomist, he sowed seeds of Condor Atlas F1. He used organic fertilizer, plastic mulch, conventional trellising, and granular fertilizer such as complete and urea. Moreover, he applied Nordox 50 WP, a copper-based fungicide, to control Early Blight.
Pagkaliwagan reported: “Maganda ang Atlas! Naka-11 harvests na ako at marami pa ring ibinubunga. Every other day ako mag-harvest. Naka-tatlong tonelada na ang na-harvest ko” (he reaped 400 kilograms in his 11th harvest).
Many buyers and traders, he further told ABC, prefer his harvest than those of neighbor-farmers who planted other varieties because Condor AtlasF1 produces the right color, shape, and size, which meet the market preference of western Batangas.
The Atlas fruit is shiny, red, and does not easily rot. It can withstand strong winds and rain.
Similarly significant, Condor Atlas F1 is a semi-determinate type (it produces fruits for a longer period of time).
Further, it has a very good shipping quality. “Kahit isang lingo na, matigas pa rin,” the barangay official-farmer said.
In the first harvest, tomato farm gate price was P12 per kilo but lately went up pa rin,” the barangay official-farmer said.
In the first harvest, tomato farm gate price was P12 per kilo but lately went up to P19/kilo and is still going up, especially during the rainy season.
Pagkaliwagan said out of his initial investment of P24,00 which he borrowed from the San Luis Municipal Agricultural Office, he has already earned P50,000 and is still harvesting a lot more as the farm gate price increased.